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Campaigns Wikia talk:Policy amendment policy/Amendment20070703
Thoughts? Chadlupkes 16:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC) : You are an advocate of Grassroots Democracy, arent you? If you like grassroots democracy, you have to be ready to apply it everywhere, and especially into your own site. If you cannot apply grassroots democracy in your own site, how can you be an advocate of grassrots democracy and demand others (like your government for example) to apply it. In our case, how can you be an advocate of grassroots democracy and in the same time, in your own site, you want to create an that are about to decide what should be voted as amendment and what not? Iasson 21:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC) ::Good question, good discussion. Grassroots Democracy, as defined by my previous posts on the subject, refers to an active grassroots. I, along with several other people, spent a lot of time and effort building the infrastructure on this website in order to give the "grassroots" of wikia a place to coordinate and collaborate on information related to politics and campaigns around the world. Then we spent 6 months talking about, arguing about and voting on policies for how this infrastructure should and would be used. The result of this debate was, very simply, devastating to the content development of the site. Even I got burned out to the point that I mostly track the changes of others now. The reason is also very simple. It makes little difference to the US Congress, my state government, or any level of government around the world what 10 people decide about politics on an electronic website. 1,000 people would be a start. 100,000 would be pretty darn good. But we had around 10 people who cared, including you. It's not enough. And I don't have the resources or influence to get more people to help. ::At this point, I want to prevent distractions that would prevent people from getting involved. The policies that we worked so hard on mean absolutely nothing if people don't build content. If I have to pull back on the anything goes ideal in order to prevent policy distractions, I'll at least put it on the table. ::Iasson, I don't know anything about you. I don't know where you live, I don't know your opinions about anything, etc. It's that kind of connection and relationship that we need to foster, not just technical skill on programming MediaWiki. Don't you think it's more important to bring forward things like who you support in local political elections than who can vote in policy elections on a website? Chadlupkes 22:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC) ::: I am not supporting anyone in my local political elections, simply because I think that the idea of parliamentary elections is flawed and that voting for persons that are about to decide on behalf of the people is un-democratic. I think that polititians (the so called representatives) are people who want to steal for four years the people's right to decide about the afairs of their community. I am simply not willing to grant, for four years, to any "representative", my right to decide. Thats why I am not supporting anyone Iasson 22:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC) ::::It sounds like you are an advocate for Direct Democracy. It's a good goal, and I'd love to see it work somewhere. But it didn't even work in Athens back in the day, because women and slaves did not have voice or vote. There will always be individuals whose job it is to manage the infrastructure of the commons. At no point in history has that resulted in anything other than anarchy, which you have stated you are against. Chadlupkes 22:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC) ::::: Whats the difference between Direct Democracy and Grassroots Democracy ? Iasson 22:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC) ::::::Grassroots Democracy is a term that refers to Activism. Direct Democracy is a method of governance. I'm focused on empowering people to get their voices into the debate. The concept of giving each individual a vote on every decision, major or minor, is a logistics nightmare. :::: I think the solution is not supporting someone in local parliamentary elections, but trying to create an alternative mechanism (mainly through technology and the internet) that will be more fair and at the same time could survive and give to a community the same order, organisation and wealth the current parliamentary system is giving. Direct Democracy didnt work in Athens back in the day, but they didnt have computers and the internet did they? Iasson 22:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC) :::::Alternative mechanism to do what? To decide the budget for their government on every level from local to global? To vote on every issue no matter how arcane or detail dependent? Given a choice of electing someone to an office, giving them a paycheck to free yourself from the need to study and understand every issue is part of the very concept of Democracy, as described in Thomas Paine's Common Sense. There are 6.5 Billion people in the world. Can we create the infrastructure, which would include physical and educational, to give all 6.5 Billion people both voice and vote on every decision? Where do we draw the line on what is possible and practical? Chadlupkes 23:08, 3 July 2007 (UTC) :::::: Not all the 6.5 billion people of the world are willing to have voice and vote both for themselves and for their fellow citizens. Most of the people are educated with the master_or_slave model, and they are ready either to obey blindly to the commands of their master, or to become masters themselves. I doubt if we can find 50.000 people worldwide that are really willing and are ready to respect in practice the democracy principle, no matter how hard, detail oriented or arcane this could be. Thats why creating an infrastructure that can support 5000 people is a good goal. This community could serve as a prototype, for other communities to follow. Iasson 23:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC) :::::::I really disagree with your idea that this small of a number would be all that actually get involved. Are you talking full time work, or part time? Because we have around 50,000 people at the local, state and national level just here in the United States that are elected officials. Expanding that limited number to the entire world population is way too small. It's also important to note that in a lot of countries, voter turnout is 80% or even 90%. In Australia, it's actually compulsory. :::::::Ok, so the next question is how we prevent those 5,000 or 50,000 people from making decisions that benefit themselves, but leave the needs of the rest of the population on the cutting room floor? In the current system, it's a rotation, where different people take over after a few years, either by election or appointment. Chadlupkes 23:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC) :::::::: You are talking about an infrastructure designed to serv the 50.000 elected officials and representatives, who are the most educated people in the world in the master_or_slave or in the parliamentary model. I am not talking about them. I am talking about a new grassroot community consisting of people who are willing to stay united under the Democracy principle, like the Athenians were. Using a well designed infrastructure, I believe they will manage to stay organised, ordered and create wealth for themselves. I dont think the goal should be to create wealth and solve the problems of everybody. A grassroot democratic community should first try to solve the problems of the community members, then solve problems of people who are following different principles and prefer their society to be drawed by the master_or_slave or by the parliamentary representative model. Iasson 00:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC) :Continued at Forum:Grassroots or Direct Democracy Regarding the elite of sysops that are about to decide whether an amendment should be voted I dont think we should add this backdoor to the policy amendment policy, but rather propose a straight democratic method. Ask the community wheither they like amendments to stop. If the majority says "yes", then ask them for how long, and under what circumstances. Then remove the "Policy amendment policy" text and put something like that: "The majority of the community decided that amendments are not allowed for (lets say) six months, or until the community (lets say) quadruplicates" Iasson 00:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC) :And we're back to trying to define "the community" again, which you've been trying to do for 6 months. But I'll take your advice and limit amendments and new policy proposals for another 6 months. Chadlupkes 15:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)